Colombia Hydrographic Zoning Units at 1:100,000 Scale

Colombia's hydrographic zoning units for environmental land-use planning, updated to a 1:100,000 scale for the 2022 National Water Study (ENA2022). The dataset was created by IDEAM based on HydroSHEDS data and 1:100,000 scale base cartography from IGAC in 2016. It represents the analysis units used in the ENA2022, excluding the marine-coastal areas from the 2013 version due to a lack of official data at the target scale.

Use Cases

• Mapping watershed boundaries and calculating areas using `nom_zh`, `nom_ah`, `SHAPE_Area`, and `the_geom` columns.
• Analyzing hierarchical hydrographic relationships using the `COD_ZH`, `COD_AH`, and `COD_SZH` code columns.
• Performing spatial joins or environmental overlays using the geometric data in the `the_geom` column with other geographic datasets.

Strengths

• Updated to a more detailed 1:100,000 scale from a previous 1:500,000 version.
• Includes a hierarchical coding system (`COD_ZH`, `COD_AH`, `COD_SZH`) for structured analysis.
• Based on established data sources HydroSHEDS and official IGAC base cartography.

Limitations

• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, limiting suitability assessment.
• Excludes marine-coastal zones present in the 2013 version due to lack of official 1:100,000 scale data.
• The description notes data is raw, unvalidated, and may contain errors or transmission delays.

Provenance

Source

IDEAM (Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales de Colombia), via www.datos.gov.co.

Collection Method

Updated based on HydroSHEDS data and edited over 1:100,000 scale base cartography from IGAC (2016).

Time Range

Primary reference year is 2022 for the ENA2022 study, using base data from 2016.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-22 06:12:07; update frequency is described as eventual.

Geography

Colombia (excluding marine-coastal areas from the 2013 version).